Presidential Debate #2 -- Live Blog!

Tonight! Nashville! Live! Blog!

As usual, Scott will be blogging in blue, my commentary will be in red, and John McCain will be an old curmudgeon.

8:58--I'm scrolling through the channels heading for NBC and it strikes me that it doesn't much matter how desperate the economy is, as long as we're spending all of our free time watching Dancing with the Stars and The Biggest Loser, aren't we screwed anyway?

9:02 -- Speaking of which, Misty May Treanor blew out her achilles on Dancing With the Stars. Don't the Patriots get a supplemental pick for that?

9:00--And the idea that anything good is going to come out of a debate where the questions come from people who don't yet have an opinion on the candidates is ludicrous. What have these folks been doing for the last 16 months?

9:02--Oh Good, Tom Brokaw just gave me permission to cheer or boo.

9:03 -- Isn't that Rod Steiger?

9:06--I think I'd be really uncomfortable if I were the guy in the front row when McCain (or Obama) is essentially standing in my lap.

9:06 -- By the way, I am watching tonight on ABC, where they will be later interviewing a group of college students. First question: which member of High School Musical is hottest?

9:07--Did McCain just propose to directly buy back bad mortgages? Wasn't he against that last week?

9:08 -- By the way, Mom just announced that she would be more comfortable voting for Tina Fey than for Sarah Palin. Which... yeah, me too, actually.

9:09 -- You've been doing God's work there.

9:10 -- Warren Buffett is not going to be anyone's treasury secretary. What a stupid question!

9:10 -- I think he meant "Jimmy Buffet".

9:11 -- During Obama's last discussion of middle class tax relief, Mom said "That's fine for the middle class, but what about the lower class?" WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?!

9:11 -- Where did they find an undecided black voter?

9:14 -- Where the hell did John McCain just walk off to? Hey old man, your chair is the other way.

9:14 -- He was illustrating the hike that some people took when Freddie and Fannie were going under. Which I think took place in "Archie's Pal Jughead" #107.

9:17 -- Hey, that was Cindy McCain and Lindsay Graham in the back row. Now, if they are undecided voters, McCain is in worse shape than I thought.

9:17 -- Uh oh. Obama just mentioned other countries. That will lose 50,000 votes.

9:18 -- They're continuing over in Section F. Nice, that's where I parked.

9:18 -- That woman has huge baubles.

9:19 -- Yes. Start making the comparison between 2000 and 2008. Don't forget to point out that the Dow is lower now than it was then.

9:20 -- I'm actually kind of torn, here. The Bush Administration has been very good for the Boston Red Sox. Do we really want to risk changing the mojo now? Do we want to go back to the days of Jose Offerman?

9:22 -- I liked the sidelong look that lady in the front row gave McCain as he sidled up the rail. You know she was thinking, "one more step, buster, and I'm going to sock you, you creep".

9:23 -- Tom Brokaw used the entire one minute discussion time to ask his question. Clamp it you old windbag!

9:24 -- Was McCain doing an acrostic on that pad? You know there's something wrong with the question when the candidates have to take notes during it.

9:26 -- $3.80 for a gallon of gas in Nashville? Reason #246 not to live in Nashville.

9:27 -- There's a .43 tax that goes to help subsidize Vince Young's therapy bills.

9:28 -- Oh sure, a 78-year-old asking a question via the internet...at least one septuagenarian in tonight's debate knows how to use e-mail.

9:29 -- To be fair, though, her actual question was "what does this button do?"

9:30 -- "Of course we can attack both problems at once. We're Americans! What does he think this is, Kenya or something?"

9:30 -- McCain: "We're not rifle shots here, we're Americans." What? Huh?

9:31 -- Obama is rambling. He doesn't seem particularly comfortable. Actually, he looks more comfortable when he's listening to McCain that he looks when it's his turn to speak.

9:33 -- Brokaw's follow-up question was 33 second long!

9:34 -- Obama does seem a bit distracted. He's probably worried about missing Dancing with the Stars and Biggest Loser.

9:36 -- Look at that doughboy in the front row. I hope he gets to ask a question.

9:36 -- And McCain makes a Herbert Hoover reference. He just locked up Edith Bunker's vote.

9:38 -- McCain's entire answer on taxes was a lie. Glad to see Obama come back to it.

9:40 -- I know the crowd has been coached not to mess up the debate, but they look comatose. The robots in the Hall of Presidents are more animated than this crowd.

9:41 -- Michelle: "Did McCain just say that reforming Social Security is not that hard?" Me: "Yes."

9:43 -- Is Joe Lieberman his running mate or something? McCain brings him up in every other answer.

9:43 -- Mrs. Obama sitting behind the questioner. I wonder if she's been tempted to slip someone a question.

9:44 -- "Senator Obama says nuclear power needs to be safe or somthing like that..." Silly Obama. Nothing says safe like nuclear power. Just ask the Russians.

9:45 -- McCain looks like he's at summer camp writing to his penpal. He seems really pleased with what he's jotting down.

9:45 -- He's writing with a Shaaaaaah-pee!

9:48 -- Form a Manhattan Project to develop energy? Do we still have that many Nazi scientists?

9:48 -- Tom Brokaw just asked if we should build 100,000 garages across the country. Now that's a man in touch with the issues of the day.

9:50 -- The camera panned back so they could get McCain in the shot, right as he was giving a "choke a bitch" gesture with his hand to someone in the crowd. Nice.

9:50 -- McCain just waked across across the stage to get an answer from Lindsay Graham in the back of the hall! The guy can't even rely on his own notes, he needs help from his lackey in the crowd!

9:54 -- That's seriously crossing some state lines. So if I'm in Tennessee and I want to see a more qualified doctor, I just hop in my car and go to Arizona? Man, I hope I don't need a prescription.

9:54 -- Dude, no one is going to travel from Tennessee to Arizona to see their doctor. Georgia, maybe.

9:55 -- Michelle: He shouldn't try to tell jokes. He's terrible at it.

9:56 -- Interesting that McCain is giving Obama a hard time about "mandating" coverage when Hillary Clinton was criticizing him for NOT mandating coverage when they were debating during the primary.

9:59 -- Obama had a fantastic answer about health care, but he probably shouldn't be using Delaware as an example of what's wrong with the banking industry, seeing as his running mate has been called the "Senator from MBNA."

10:04 -- Obama seems to be hitting his stride. He's had a very good last 10 minutes. And now Brokaw is breaking the momentum with an interminable question.

10:04 -- MST3K crowd shot: pasty... pasty... pasty... beefy... pasty...

10:05 -- Yeah, if Gallup did one thing right with this representative sample, they accurately portrayed the relative heft of the American people.

10:07 -- McCain: "...and during the Boxer Rebellion, I stood up to my idol McKinley and warned against American intervention".

10:09 -- Section F is the clear winner tonight. Everyone gets a two-liter of Pepsi.

10:09 -- If McCain mentions Lieberman again, Section F gets free fries from Wendy's.

10:10 -- Is the debate being held on the old Let's Make a Deal set? Are they going to wheel out a mystery box any time soon?

10:11 -- Wait, I thought Reagan was his hero?

10:14 -- There's nothing worse than being green behind the ears.

10:15 -- "I know how to get him. I know how to get bin Laden." Then why don't you tell us? Why should we have to wait for you to be president? If you know how to get him, shouldn't you, you know, share that information?

10:17 -- That almost smacks of Reagan and the Iranian hostage crisis. As soon as he gets elected, they magically get released. Is McCain suggesting that if we want bin Laden to be caught, we just need to elect him, and the next day Pakistan will mysteriously present him in chains?

10:18 -- That's "McCain hero Reagan" to you.

10:20 -- I hate the term "petro dollars." Sounds like a Exxon credit card rewards program. Earn enough petro dollars and get a free car wash in Moscow.

10:20 -- Am I going to have to rent Eastern Promises to understand this section of the debate? Help me, Aragorn!

10:22 -- What's up with the goober in the trucker hat in the back of the section? Hey bud, if you're going to a forum with the next president of the United States wash your friggin' hair and make yourself presentable.

10:24 -- Stop yelling at Joe Sixpack, dude.

10:26 -- John McCain keeps bringing up this "League of Democracies." Where I come from, we call that NATO. I don't think we need another one.

10:26 -- I'm getting pretty psyched. It's almost time to hear from the ABC student council. This is going to be so entertaining and informative!

10:28 -- Yeah, I don't like this League of Democracies crap either. The last thing I want is for American actions to be vetoed by Aquaman.

10:31 -- I really think Obama would have been better served by answering the "What don't you know" question directly. That one shouldn't be that hard.

10:32 -- I think McCain is bonking this one worse, though. "I don't know what's going to happen" isn't really reassuring from the President.

10:33 -- Maybe. But you can go from that to "I may not know what's going to happen" to "I know how to
deal with the unexpected." (Not that McCain did).

10:34 -- Me: Did he just say "comrade"? Dad: He was indoctrinated when he was in prison.

10:37 -- Apparently Kodak sponsored tonight's debate...looks like every one of the audience has identical disposable cameras.

Well, I thought McCain won. Not by much, just a little. I don't think it changed much, though. Obama will still be up 5-7 points at the end of the week.

I thought Obama edged it out. McCain just seemed to be making stuff up towards the end. But what really matters is what the student focus group thought.

I'm not even watching ABC, but I can tell you what they thought. You'll have a couple of 20-year-old guys with wire-rim glasses and no hope of having a girlfriend saying that McCain won and that Obama is a Muslim terrorist. A couple of young ladies will be concerned about Darfur and global warming, and generally wringing their hands. And a couple of others who think Obama is going to save the world.

The students, by the way, are being wrangled by Charlie Gibson, who seems to be on the brink of doddering. I'm pretty sure I saw at least one dodder from him. First student interviewed: Brittany Fiffick, who is still undecided. Seriously? Still undecided? Here's an idea: let's change the voting age to 30. The general consensus from the undecideds is that they are now leaning slightly towards Obama. But you know what? Who care what any of these knobs have to say.

And with that, I think I'm done. Peace out, internets!

Tags: Election 2008 Barack Obama Debate John McCain